Tag: Nintendo

HIGHLIGHTS

Nintendo Switch Minecraft users will have to sign in with Xbox Live

This is needed for Minecraft cross-platform play

It could explain Sony’s reluctance to support it

According to Mojang CEO Jonas Martensson, to use Minecraft for cross-platform play Xbox Live is required even on the Nintendo Switch. In an interview with Pressfire.no translated on popular gaming forum NeoGAF, he stated that Nintendo has agreed to this and have been “pretty pragmatic and understanding.”

“We’re tying everything together with Xbox Live. So you log in with Xbox Live…,” he trailed off, further being pressed by the website if this would include the Nintendo Switch to which he said:

“Yes. That’s pretty unique as well! But everyone that’s in on this, all the platform holders, have been pretty pragmatic and understanding of that what we’re trying to do is create a good experience for the players. We needed a good system to connect everyone, and Xbox Live is a good system.”

Later in the interview he goes on to say that Nintendo has been “very open when it comes to working together” and the process of incorporating Minecraft cross-platform play on the Nintendo Switch has been “very smooth.”

Over the week, Sony has been on the receiving end of criticism for not supporting Minecraft’s cross-platform play functionality. This would have ensured all consoles, mobile devices, VR, and PC can all play together online. If this does require an Xbox Live account to sign in, it would add to Microsoft’s tally of daily active users, essentially driving its business forward.

Understandably, Sony wouldn’t be interested in exposing its consumers to Microsoft’s ecosystem, which could explain Sony’s Jim Ryan using a rather flawed defence that essentially harks back to Nintendo’s overprotectiveness in the 1980s and 1990s. Martensson stops short of saying this when asked, rather replying with the more diplomatically acceptable “you’d have to ask them [Sony].”

This isn’t the first time Sony has been unwilling to bring cross-platform play to the PS4 with football meets cars multiplayer title Rocket League not getting the nod for Xbox One versus PS4 play.

“We’ve been doing that with PS3 and PC, PS4 and PC most recently with Street Fighter 5 and Rocket League and other games. That’s nothing new for us, in terms of working with developers and publishers to allow cross-platform play between PC and PS4,” said Sony Worldwide Studios’ Shuhei Yoshida to Eurogamer at the time.

“Because PC is an open platform it’s much more straightforward,” Yoshida continued. “Connecting two different closed networks is much more complicated so we have to work with developers and publishers to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish… We also have to look at the technical aspect – and the technical aspect could be the easiest. We also have to look at policy issues and business issues as well.”

Eventually Rocket League was made playable for PS4 players to play with those on the PC and not against Xbox One owners. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft is open to a similar arrangement for Minecraft.[“Source-ndtv”]

Shares in Japan’s Nintendo Co surged on Friday as consumers flocked to try out its new Pokemon Go smartphone game, raising hopes that the company’s long-awaited shift into mobile gaming will pay off.

Seeking to protect its console business, the Japanese group had for many years resisted introducing mobile games with its best-known characters such as Super Mario Brosand Pokemon, finally yielding to investor calls last year when it announced a tie-up with mobile specialst DeNA Co.

Its first mobile title, Miitomo, was only launched in March after some delay and was also a social networking-sytle application, leaving investors disappointed and impatient.

But Wednesday’s launch of Pokemon Go in the United States has seen the title shoot up to become the No. 1 free app in Apple Inc’s US iTunes store. It was also launched in Australia and New Zealand this week and is expected to be rolled out in Japan soon.

Many reviewers said they were keen on the game although they hoped that technical glitches would soon be resolved. Shares in Nintendo jumped 10 percent to their highest level in more than two months with the stock the most heavily traded by value on Tokyo’s main board and giving the firm a market value of about $23 billion (roughly Rs. 1,54,934 crores).

The game, in which players search out and capture Pokemon characters and do battle with other Pokemon, is free, but it also offers in-app purchases for power-ups and extra items.

“It has more (monetisation) than we expected; as users build their Pokémon inventory, spending money becomes needed to store, train, hatch and battle,” Macquarie Securities said in a note to clients, adding that purchases so far in Australia were not being driven by big spenders but by a large number of users.

The company has promised four more smartphone games in the financial year to end-March and has said it expects mobile gaming to help boost annual operating profit by a third to JPY 45 billion ($450 million).

Nintendo also plans to release its next console globally in March 2017.

“The company has huge intangible assets like characters but it hasn’t been trying to use them seriously. But the success of its Pokemon Go shows the company has got great content,” said a fund manager at a UK asset management firm in Tokyo.